Appeal 2007-2061
Application 10/319,429
are sustainable for the reasons set forth by the Examiner. On the other hand,
for the reasons set forth by Appellant, we find that the remaining rejections
are not sustainable.
We consider first the Examiner’s § 102 rejections over Welich, Lutz,
Maeda, and Hashimoto. The fundamental flaw in each of these rejections is
the Examiner’s position that the claim recitation in claims 24 and 26, “the
outer side of the firm outer skin defining an exterior automotive vehicle
body surface,” is a statement of intended use and, therefore, is not entitled to
patentable weight. The Examiner reasons that the claim recitation “simply
suggests that the skin of the composite component is an exposed outermost
layer [and] . . . does not indicate that the composite component constitutes
an exterior automotive vehicle body surface” (Answer 14, first para.).
However, we fully concur with Appellant that the claim recitation
“positively recites the limitation that the claimed component has a firm outer
skin with an outer side that is an automotive vehicle exterior body surface”
(Reply Br. 2, penultimate para.). Although the appealed claims do not
define an automotive vehicle body in its entirety, but only a composite
component thereof, we construe the claim recitation as expressly defining
the outer skin of an actual exterior automotive vehicle body, but not a
laminate that can be formed into one. Accordingly, this positively recited
claim feature is not met by the ski of Hashimoto nor the roof linings of
Welich, Maeda, nor Lutz. Significantly, the Examiner has not made the case
that the composites of Hashimoto, Lutz, Maeda, and Welich can reasonably
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